5.  The applicant was born in 1957 and lives in Volgograd. He is the director-general and editor-in-chief of the Gorodskiye Vesti newspaper.
6.  On 2 September 1994 the applicant published an article under the headline “In Blind Frenzy” (“V slepom ugare”). It opened with a verse mocking Jewish last names, which the applicant had overheard “at a meeting of the Russian National Unity [movement] ... organised... by a local neofascist Mr Terentyev”. The applicant wrote that at the meeting the verse had been recited by a woman in the traditional Cossack clothing. He had not approached her then, but later his curiosity was piqued when he saw that verse printed in Mr Terentyev's newspaper Kolokol and he decided to meet that woman.
The applicant then related his discussion with the woman who was aggrieved by her precarious living conditions resulting from profound social and economic changes in Russia, and blamed the worsening of her situation on Jews. She confessed to being an avid reader of the Kolokol newspaper which the article described as “a horrible brainchild of the 'Black Hundreds', deceitful beyond belief”. The woman was a local distributor of that newspaper in her village.
The article concluded with the applicant's analysis of the current political situation, critical of social parasitism and witch-hunting.
7.  On 24 September 1994 Mr Terentyev lodged a civil defamation action against the applicant and the Gorodskiye Vesti newspaper in connection with the applicant's description of him as a “neofascist”.
8.  On 20 December 1994 the Sovetskiy District Court of Volgograd granted the action and ordered that the applicant pay non-pecuniary damages to Mr Terentyev.
9.  The applicant lodged an appeal. His appeal was supported by the Sovetskiy district prosecutor who submitted, in particular, that the Volgograd regional prosecutor had opened a criminal investigation into the incitement of ethnic hatred by the Kolokol newspaper.
10.  On 27 February 1995 the Volgograd Regional Court quashed the judgment of 20 December 1994 on the ground that the District Court had not commissioned an expert study of the publication and had not examined the materials of the criminal investigation. The matter was remitted for a new examination.
11.  On 22 August 1996 the applicant asked the District Court to commission a composite linguistic and social-psychological expert study, to examine ten issues of the Kolokol newspaper printed between August 1993 and August 1994, and to adjourn the proceedings pending investigation of the criminal case against Mr Terentyev.
12.  On 2 December 1996 the Sovetskiy District Court dismissed, by an interim decision, the applicant's requests. It determined that there was no need to commission a composite study or to examine the past issues of the Kolokol newspaper as long as the expert reports made in the context of criminal proceedings against Mr Terentyev were available.
13.  On the same day the Sovetskiy District Court gave judgment. It found in favour of Mr Terentyev and awarded him damages against the applicant.
14.  On 24 April 1997 the Presidium of the Volgograd Regional Court, by way of supervisory-review proceedings, quashed the judgment of 2 December 1996 on the ground that the District Court had not remedied the defects identified by the Regional Court on 27 February 1995 (it had not commissioned an expert study or examined the materials of the criminal case against Mr Terentyev). The case was remitted for a new examination.
15.  On 8 November 1999 the Volgograd regional prosecutor's office discontinued the criminal proceedings against Mr Terentyev for the lack of indication that he had committed a criminal offence. It found as follows:
“An analysis of publications in the Kolokol newspaper and public statements by S.V. Terentyev yields the conclusion that their purpose is the 'elucidation' of the Judaic religion and a negative appraisal of the Russian government, 'the world Jewish masonry', Judaic cult and symbols. However, they do not contain incitement to extermination of the Jewish people, humiliation of national dignity, or violent overthrow of the existing government. Striving to awaken the Russian national self-consciousness, the Kolokol newspaper personified by Mr Terentyev does not call for violent actions. The publications do not proclaim nationalism, that is the aspiration to declare the superiority of one nation. The leaflets and statements which prompted the opening of the criminal investigation do not call for ethnic cleansing, pogroms or any persecution of persons of Jewish ethnic origin. Thus, Mr Terentyev's actions do not aim at inciting ethnic or racial hatred or discord or humiliating national honour or dignity, that is they lack the constituent elements of a criminal offence...”.
16.  On 10 August 2001 the Sovetskiy District Court of Volgograd gave a new judgment in the defamation case. It found that the applicant had failed to show the accuracy of his designation of Mr Terentyev as a “neofascist” for the following reasons:
“According to the [1981] Soviet encyclopaedic dictionary, its authors interpret 'neofascism' as 'a notion encompassing contemporary right-wing and most reactionary movements which are, in their political and ideological aspects, successors to fascist organisations disbanded after the Second World War'.
Taking into account that S.V. Terentyev is a son of the Great Patriotic War[1] veteran and that he actively participates in the political life of our town, the court considers that, by calling Terentyev a 'neofascist', [the applicant] insulted the honour and dignity of the plaintiff, harmed his authority and caused him moral anxiety... The court considers it established that S.V. Terentyev is not a member of a political party that is a successor to fascist organisations. It does not follow from the copies of the Kolokol newspapers... that S.V. Terentyev belongs to a political party advocating fascist principles.”
17.  The District Court further had regard to the expert studies carried out in the context of criminal proceedings against Mr Terentyev and noted that on 8 November 1999 the criminal case had been discontinued for the lack of indication of a criminal offence.
18.  The District Court awarded Mr Terentyev RUR 30,000 against the applicant and RUR 15,000 against the newspaper; the latter was also to bear the court fees.
19.  The District Court did not refer to the opinions of other experts, including that of the Judicial Chamber for Information Disputes under the authority of the President of the Russian Federation, which the applicant sought to adduce in support of his statement that Mr Terentyev was notoriously anti-Semitic. On 20 January 1995 the Chamber found, in particular, as follows:
“...Pages of the newspaper are dedicated to a search for those responsible for Russia's misfortunes and for its enemies who are identified on the basis of their ethnic origin. The editors seek to establish a pseudo-scientific causal link and to create a stable ethnic stereotype of the enemy. To that end the newspaper has published such notoriously false creations, as the Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion, the Jew's Catechism, the Note on Ritual Killings, etc...
The editor-in-chief S. Terentyev bolsters the newspaper's core idea in his article 'Review before the exam' (issue no. 46): 'The enemies have occupied all the key positions in Russia'. And the conclusion follows: 'Russian people shall have Russian governance'...
Thus, the authors of the Kolokol newspaper actively use ethnic affiliation for advocating anti-Semitism, fostering a negative attitude to Jewish persons, whom the editors hold responsible for various unpleasant phenomena in today's Russia.”
20.  On 26 November 1995 a three-expert panel from the Anthropology and Ethnography Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences found as follows:
“In general, the conception of the [Kolokol] newspaper reflects the National Socialist perception of the cause of human misfortunes – the global Jewish conspiracy – and of the way to deal with it by cleansing the naturally creative Russian ethnic community of biological and cultural influence by other peoples, mainly by Jews. The process of cleansing implies ousting of everything relating to the history of the Jewish people from public discourse, exclusion of Jews from social fabric or restrictions on their civil rights on the ground of inherent malignancy of Jews for the humankind and the Russian people.”
21.  The applicant appealed. He submitted, in particular, that the District Court could not rely on the expert studies because they had only concerned the charge of incitement to ethnic and racial hatred and related issues, without addressing the notions of “fascism” or “neofascism”. For the same reason it could not legitimately refer to the decision to abandon criminal charges against Mr Terentyev because the constituent elements of a criminal offence imputed to him had been substantially different from the scope of the defamation claim.
22.  On 28 November 2001 the Volgograd Regional Court upheld the judgment of 10 August 2001. It endorsed the reasoning of the District Court but, having regard to the applicant's financial situation, reduced the award to RUR 5,000 against him and to RUR 10,000 against his newspaper.
23.  On 25 January 2002 a court bailiff recovered the award from the applicant.